Biden Awards Medals on Jan. 6 to Capitol Police Officers, Poll Workers

President Joe Biden leaves after a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and to award Presidential Citizens Medals in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 6, 2023. Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

President Joe Biden marked the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol by awarding medals to Capitol Police officers who were on duty that day as well as poll workers and election officials.

Biden bestowed Presidential Citizens Medals on 14 individuals, including Officers Harry Dunn and Eugene Goodman, as he hailed the response by law enforcement to the breach.

“History will remember your names. They’ll remember your courage. They’ll remember your bravery. They’ll remember your extraordinary commitments to your fellow Americans. That’s not hyperbole; that’s a fact. That’s a fact,” Biden said, calling the officers “heroic.”

Relatives of Officers Howard Liebengood, Brian Sicknick, and Jeffrey Smith were presented medals. Liebengood and Smith committed suicide after the breach while Sicknick died of natural causes the following day. All three were on duty on Jan. 6, 2021. No officers died on that day.

U.S. Capitol Police Officers Dunn, Goodman, Aquilino Gonnell, and Caroline Edwards were joined by Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges and former Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone.

“I want to thank you all for your service, your strength, your courage, and, I know it’s a corny thing to say, but your patriotism,” Biden said.

Also awarded medals were poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss and officials from three states: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat; former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican; and Al Schmidt, a former Republican election official in Philadelphia.

Freeman and Moss, her daughter, were working at State Farm Arena in Atlanta during the 2020 election when observers and media were told to go home, leaving a window of time when none were present but counting continued. Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s onetime lawyer, accused Moss and Freeman of planning the lack of oversight as well as election fraud, pointing to video footage that appeared to show workers producing ballots after telling the observers to leave.

Trump criticized Freeman last week on his Truth Social media platform and drew attention to the purported “water main break” that caused the evacuation of part of the arena on election night, which was later found to be just an overflowing urinal.

Biden said that Freeman and Moss “were just doing their jobs until they were targeted and threatened by the same predators and peddlers of lies that would fuel the insurrection,” referring to the Capitol breach. The president praised the women for testifying during a hearing of the House Jan. 6 panel.

Biden said that Benson “refused to back down” after being threatened in the wake of the 2020 election, that Bowers “put his obligation to the Constitution of this country ahead of everything when he refused intense political pressure to decertify the 2020 election results,” and that Schmidt, who was just appointed as Pennsylvania secretary of state by new Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, “did not bend, he did not bow, he did not yield to the political threats and pressure” during the election.

The ceremony took place as the House of Representatives carried out additional voting for speaker. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) received enough votes to win the race overnight.

President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

Marks Anniversary

In a separate event outside the Capitol, top Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) marked the anniversary of the January 2021 breach.

Jeffries said that multiple officers “gave their lives” protecting Congress, later stating that “as a result of the events on Jan. 6, the lives of five heroic officers were lost” and that a sixth died defending the Capitol in April 2021.

Jeffries was referring to four officers who committed suicide—Liebengood, Smith, and Metropolitan Police Department Officers Gunther Hashida and Kyle deFreytag—as well as Sicknick. The sixth was Billy Evans, who was killed several months after the breach by a radical Muslim.

Only one of the deaths has been linked officially to the breach. The Department of Justice classified Liebengood’s Jan. 9, 2021, suicide as a line-of-duty death under pressure from family members and after Congress passed a law reforming the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program.

Family members of the officers read their names during the event before holding a moment of silence.

Biden referenced the new law, which he signed, in his prepared remarks, saying it “recognizes death by silent injury ... so future families of public safety officers who die in the wake of traumatic circumstances will get the benefits they deserve.”

Ashli Babbitt, a military veteran who entered the Capitol, was shot dead on Jan. 6 by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, who was later cleared by the Department of Justice. Babbitt’s mother was detained on Jan. 6 during a protest marking her daughter’s death.

Three others died on Jan. 6, 2021, in or around the Capitol. Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Phillips were determined to have died from natural causes, while the death of Rosanne Boyland was described as accidental. Video footage, however, showed that she was struck by an officer as she lay on the ground near the Capitol, and a use-of-force expert told The Epoch Times that the officer who struck Boyland committed felony assault.